Display racks are commonly used in supermarkets and other retail stores to display and dispense items of merchandise which are generally sold as self-service items. A common example of the use of display racks is in the display and sale of cans or bottles of soft drinks in supermarkets, the bottles being removed by a customer from the display rack in a self-service manner.
The beverage bottles or other merchandise items are usually shipped to the supermarket or retail store in a stacked configuration atop a pallet. The pallet provides a base by which the stack of merchandise may be moved about with a wheeled hand truck or fork lift. The merchandise items, specifically beverage and soft drink cans or bottles, are commonly loaded onto a truck or rail car in the stacked configuration for transportation from the bottler or supplier to the supermarket. For the loading and unloading of the truck or rail car the wheeled hand truck or fork lift is commonly used.
The merchandise items, bottles, or cans are typically produced in an automated assembly line type of production facility. At the end of the production process, the cans or bottles are loaded into trays which can conveniently be stacked when filled, one upon another on the pallet.
Storage and shipping trays for beverage or soft drink bottles such as the two or three liter variety, which are designed to be stackable are well known in the art. Such trays typically have bottle retaining pockets to hold the soft drink bottles in specifically configured sockets on an underside of the tray into which the tops of the bottles on a subjacent tray are inserted. Trays of this type, when filled, can be easily stacked to provide a stable and conveniently transportable shipment of beverage bottles.
However, when the stacked shipment of merchandise or beverage bottles arrives at the supermarket or other retail store, the bottles must be individually removed from the trays and placed on the display rack shelves when restocking the display rack. This time-consuming and labor-intensive task of restocking the gravity feed display racks from a shipment of stacked beverage bottles has proven to be both costly and inefficient.
Display racks for self-service items such as cans or bottles of soft drinks frequently include a gravity feed configuration for the convenience of both the customer and store personnel. In gravity feed display racks, a shelf is tilted such that the rear edge of the shelf is above the front edge of the shelf thereby advancing items supported on the shelf toward the front edge due to gravity. In such a gravity feed configuration, the merchandise is readily accessible in a self-service manner to a customer in that it is positioned along the front edge of the shelf. This avoids the problem that it may be difficult for customers to reach bottles or merchandise on the rear of the shelf, particularly if the shelves are of significant depth or if several shelves are closely spaced one above another. In addition, the merchandise toward the rear of the shelf may be hidden from customers as the shelf is emptied particularly if another shelf is disposed over it. Gravity feed shelving configurations avoid these problems by automatically advancing the merchandise toward a front edge of the shelf.
Additionally, gravity feed shelves have proven to be advantageous for the store personnel in their restocking merchandise. Store personnel can readily ascertain whether a gravity feed shelf is empty by seeing if any merchandise is located on the front edge of the shelf. If the shelf needs to be restocked, store personnel can readily restock the gravity feed shelves either from the front edge or the rear edge and the merchandise will advance toward the front edge of the shelf without the stock clerk pushing or arranging the merchandise on the shelf.
The main problem with the restocking of gravity feed shelves is that the merchandise must be individually removed from the stack of trays in which the merchandise arrives at the store and then placed on the shelf one-by-one in order for it to advance toward the front edge of the shelf and be arranged in a presentable manner for the self-service customers. Typically the merchandise and beverage bottles or cans of soft drinks are shipped to the supermarket or other retail store in large quantities. These shipments of merchandise are delivered in stacked trays on pallets in which each tray contains the bottles or cans as arranged by the supplier in the automated process previously described.
Therefore, a need has arisen for a merchandising system which can meet the storage, transportation and dispensing needs for transferring bottles, cans, and merchandise items from the automated production facility of a supplier or bottler to the supermarket or retail outlet. Such a system should be easily incorporated into currently existing facilities and operations while reducing the labor and manpower required in the handling of the merchandise from production to self-service access by customers.